It’s September - a new academic year, and you have decided that you need a new challenge.  You are in your final year of your degree programme, and you would like to have some extra-curricular activities to add to your Curriculum Vitae before you leave university and start looking for a job.  You think of what your interests are and try to determine your career goals so that you can find a suitable opportunity.  You go to the Student’s Union building on campus to browse volunteering opportunities in the university and you come across a poster about the election for the President of the Student’s Union.  Your friends always tell you that you are a great people-person, and that you have real leadership qualities – this could be the opportunity you were waiting for all along! 

You decide that you will put yourself forward as a candidate for the Student’s Union Presidential Election in your university.  The vote will take place after you and the other candidates have had the opportunity to make a speech in front of other students at the assembly in one-months’ time.  Your task is to assemble a campaign team, who will help you to research and write your speech for this assembly.  This speech will capture the core message of your campaign and should compel others to want to vote for you as President.  To be President of the Student’s Union, you will need to show your leadership qualities – but what kind of leader are you?  Why should your peers vote for you over other candidates? During your Presidency, how will you advocate for issues that are important to students in your university? These are all questions that you will need to answer in order to write a speech that will convince an electorate of your peers to vote for you.  In the end, you will make a speech in front of your peers.  When all speeches are made, the electorate will cast their votes and the President of the Student’s Union will be announced.

Step 1: Establishing your campaign team
This Web Quest works best if participants work in teams of 4.  In each campaign team, the following roles will be assigned:

1. The Candidate: This participant will be the face of the campaign and will be the person who will run for President.
2. The Researcher/Voter Contact: This participant will take polls of the student body to determine the key issues that are affecting them and the key attributes that they are looking for in a Student Union President.
3. The Campaign Manager: This participant will be responsible for ensuring that the campaign message is clear and is communicated to the student body. This participant is also responsible for ensuring that the campaign is delivered on time.
4. The Speech-writer/Press Secretary: This participant is responsible for writing the campaign speech and for promoting the candidate through social media and other media channels.

Working in the campaign teams, participants will assign these roles within the team – taking into account the preferences, talents and interests of each team member.  In this activity, all team members will take a role of leader for a particular aspect of the campaign and they will be invited to complete a self-reflection on their own role in the campaign as part of the assessment of this WebQuest.

Step 2: What are leadership skills?
The first step to becoming President to represent your peers is to understand the types of qualities and skills you will need to exhibit as a leader.  The Centre for Creative Leadership defines the 4 core skills that all leaders need as: self-awareness, communication, influence, and learning agility.  To read more about this definition, visit this link: https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/fundamental-4-core-leadership-skills-for-every-career-stage/

To learn more about the skills that a leader needs, the following links are useful:
·  https://www.skillsyouneed.com/leadership-skills.html
·  https://www.thebalancecareers.com/top-leadership-skills-2063782
·  https://www.thebalancecareers.com/leadership-skills-list-2063757

Step 3: What are the different types of leaders?
Leaders come in many shapes and sizes – different leaders have different qualities that they can bring to the table and there is no correct or incorrect way to be a leader.  A lot has been written on the different styles and qualities that leaders can have.  To help you and your team to determine who has the best leadership skills for every role in your team, the following links provide an insight into different leadership styles:
·  https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm
·  https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/leadership-styles
Using these links, you and your team will collaborate to assign roles within your team.

Step 4: Delegating within your team
Now that you have assigned roles in your team, it is time to delegate tasks within your team so that you can develop your campaign.  For this activity, all team members will work independently to research their role online and develop the aspect of their role that they are responsible for.  The following division of tasks are advised:
1. The Candidate should research political leaders they admire so that they can emulate their qualities as President. The Candidate should also research tips for public speaking, as they will be delivering the speech at the end of the activity.
2. The Researcher/Voter Contact should begin their work by polling the student body to find out what issues affect them and what style of leadership they think is most appropriate for President.
3. The Campaign Manager should research strategies used by successful campaigns to ensure that the Candidate is elected.
4. The Speech-writer/Press Secretary should research and find political speeches that have been effective throughout history and should also research which is the most appropriate social media channel to reach the electorate.

For more guidance on the roles that team members can play in your campaign team, visit: https://callhub.io/political-campaign-jobs/ .

Step 5: Developing your Campaign Manifesto
Working together in your team, you will discuss what you have learned from the previous step to craft your campaign message and develop your campaign manifesto.  Your campaign manifesto will be key to your team’s success in getting the Candidate elected. Your Campaign Manifesto is like your Candidate’s ‘brand’ – it highlights their ‘unique selling point’ and should outline exactly why the electorate should vote for your Candidate.

The Manifesto should be a combination of the issues that your electorate would like to see addressed by the President; but it should also be aligned with the personal beliefs and values of your campaign team.
The following links and templates are useful for helping you to determine your Manifesto:
·  http://studentsunionucl.org/how-to-guides/how-to-write-manifesto
·  https://soasunion.org/elections/manifestoegs/
·  https://www.rusu.co.uk/elections/candidates_resources/how-to-write-your-manifesto/

To act as further inspiration, the following links provide you with some inspiration for how other Student Union Presidents have connected with the electorate in their universities and how they crafted their Manifesto to get elected:
·  https://www.cardiffmetsu.co.uk/elections/manifestos/
·  http://www.smallwood4nus.co.uk/presidential-manifesto.html
·  http://services.su.nuigalway.ie/site/view/3743/
·  https://www.fxu.org.uk/pageassets/studentvoice/elections/manifestoandpublicity/Manifesto-Examples.pdf
·  http://www.heythrop.ac.uk/sites/default/files/docs/student-support/HSU/Election%20pack.pdf
When reviewing these examples of Manifestos, try to identify the leadership traits and qualities that each Student Union President shows in their Manifesto – this will help your team to incorporate the same traits in the Manifesto for your Candidate.

Step 6: Promote your Campaign Manifesto
Based on the research that your team has completed, you should all collaborate to publish your Manifesto online and to get the message out about your campaign.  For this activity, each team will identify four activities that they can complete to promote the Campaign Manifesto.  Each team member will then take responsibility for promoting the Manifesto through one of the identified channels.  For support in completing this step, the following links are useful: 
·  https://www.designhill.com/design-blog/marketing-ideas-for-promoting-an-election-campaign/
·  https://callhub.io/promotion-ideas/
·  https://sarv.com/resource/post/5-surefire-ideas-for-promoting-your-election-campaign


Step 7: Writing your Speech
Now that you and your team have determined and promoted your campaign manifesto, it is time to get started on writing your campaign speech.  Although your Press Secretary/Speech-writer is ultimately responsible for this task, it is important that you are all involved in the speech-writing process because you are all working together to get your Candidate elected.  For some tips on writing speeches, the following links are useful:
·  https://classroom.synonym.com/how-to-write-a-student-election-speech-12079338.html
·  https://teens.lovetoknow.com/teen-activities/speech-ideas-student-council-roles

For inspiration, you can research speeches given by global leaders during election campaigns. The following links provide some examples of these speeches – but feel free to research and find your own examples.  When you find a speech that resonates with you, discuss with your team what you like most about the speech and the leader who deliver the speech; and work together to incorporate elements into your own speech:
·  Barack Obama's Campaign Speech (2008): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/10/barackobama
·  Emmanuel Macron Election Speech (2017): http://uk.businessinsider.com/full-text-emmanuel-macron-first-speech-president-2017-5
·  Justin Trudeau Election Speech (2015): https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/justin-trudeau-for-the-record-we-beat-fear-with-hope/
·  Theresa May Brexit Campaign Speech (2017): https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/07/theresa-mays-relaunch-speech-full-transcript/

Remember to reflect on the type of leader that the Candidate wants to be, if elected as President, and include this in your speech!

Step 8: Delivering your Speech to the Assembly.
The final step is for the Candidate to deliver the Speech to the Assembly (in this case, the Assembly will comprise other students in the class).  After the Speech has been delivered, all students will vote to elect their new President – the only rule here is that the campaign team cannot vote for their own Candidate!




Step 9: Completing a self-assessment
As an assessment exercise for this Web Quest, we ask all groups to complete a short self-reflection, where each individual member will answer the following questions:
·  What task did I take leadership for?
·  How did I feel in the role of a leader?
·  What was my leadership style?
·  What would I change about my role in this task if we were to do it again?

We then encourage teams to work together, to critically evaluate the leadership within the team in developing this campaign.  For this activity, teams will work together to answer the following questions:
·  What were the different leadership styles in the team?
·  Did some team members have only one or more leadership styles?
·  If team members had different styles, where these styles appropriate to their roles?
·  Where some leadership styles easier to work with than others? If yes, which ones?

After the completion of this webquest, learners will be able to:

Knowledge	Skills	Attitudes
· Basic knowledge of leadership skills · Basic knowledge of leadership styles · Fundamental knowledge on how to develop a campaign manifesto · Factual knowledge of how to develop a campaign for a student election · Basic knowledge of how to promote a campaign manifesto through various channels · Advanced knowledge of how to research campaigns online · Basic knowledge of how to write a speech for a campaign · Basic knowledge of how to deliver a speech	· Conduct research in online environments to complete a set task · Use team-work skills to complete the project · Apply negotiation skills in a group-work task · Conduct a field-research to involve the student body in identifying issues · Choose one issue for the campaign manifesto · Practice negotiation skills in a group activity · Use promotion techniques to promote campaign manifesto · Use deductive reasoning to develop a campaign manifesto · Write a campaign speech to convey what type of leader your candidate will be · Use persuasive language in your campaign speech to present your candidate · Deliver a speech to your peers with the aim of convincing your peers to vote for your candidate · Participate in a self-reflection to determine their own performance as leaders of different tasks in the activity · Participate in a group reflection activity to determine the different leadership styles in the group.	· Work collaboratively with peers to deliver a project · Negotiate with peers to deliver a project · Discuss approaches for the issues that affect peers · Participate in an electoral process

Leadership is a function, it is not a role.  In order to be a good leader, individuals need to have a variety of skills so that they can communicate effectively with others, motivate others to support their vision, resolve conflicts as they arise and ensure that their project is delivered on time, successfully.  In this Web Quest, on the face of it, we may think that the only leader in the group is the Candidate, because they are the most visible member of the team to the public.  We tend to think of leaders as the people who take up this role of the ‘public face’ – the main person in a company, organisation or campaign, for example.  However, the aim of this Web Quest was to show you that you can all develop your leadership skills working as part of this team, as you can all take responsibility for a different task.  Here, we tried to show you that you can each bring different qualities and attributes to the team to help all grow as leaders.  Some with leadership skills may be more willing to step out in front of the group and become the ‘public face’ – the Candidate; but others with leadership skills might work best coordinating activities like the Campaign Manager and others might be more comfortable using their initiative and leadership skills in working with people, like the Voter Contact.  As such, in this Web Quest we saw how team members can all grow as leaders in their various roles.